A Field Day for Richard Wilbur

From time to time, Field magazine at Oberlin College runs a symposium on a poet. The feature on Hart Crane a few years ago was tremendously helpful to readers of the sublime but challenging author of White Buildings and The Bridge. Now, under the editorial supervision of David Young and David Walker, comes a full new (122-page) issue divided half between new work (from such as John Gallaher and Kimiko Hahn) and a loving look at the poems of Richard Wilbur. Appreciative essays from Bruce Weigl (on "The Beautiful Changes"), Steve Friebert and Stuart Friebert (on "First Snow in Alsace"), Beckian Fritz Godberg (on "Icarium Mare"), and Carole Simmons Oles (on that late masterpiece "This Pleasing Anxious Being") will enhance your enjoyment of the poems, thoughtfully reprinted in the issue for easy reference. With the help of such guides the reader will hear "echoes of Keats and Shelley -- again establishing Wilbur in a continuum of poets introduced directly by [Thomas] Gray's line in the title" of Wilbur's gorgeous tryptich, "This Pleasing Anxious Being," which appeared in the 1999 edition of The Best American Poetry. -- DL